ORA has revised its due date to 3 days
before submission date to sponsor

In keeping with the JHM strategic initiatives
for enhancing our environment for biomedical discovery, Antony Rosen,
Vice Dean for Research, Michael Amey, Associate Dean for Research
Administration and Nicole Leonard, Deputy Director of the Office of
Research Administration are pleased to announce several changes that
should better support our investigators' efforts to obtain research
funding and accelerate the agreements necessary to launch and maintain
successful research projects. These include a new 3 day due date for
proposals to be submitted to ORA prior to the sponsor's deadline,
as well as new ORA structure to ease processing of contracts and research
agreements.

In December we completed a survey of NIH applicant PIs from the past
year. That survey documented our expectation that our investigators
needed more time to prepare competitive grant proposals, and that
we needed to process sponsored contracts and other research agreements
more quickly. To address those goals we are revising the organization
and deployment of our existing Miller Research Building ORA staff
into two teams, and are making several additional changes that will
assist investigators in submitting grant applications:

1. NEW ORA MRB Teams:a) a larger grants team that will have the responsibility for all
grant applications, including the more complex applications that have
previously been reviewed by the ORA senior level negotiator staff,
and
b) a contract and research agreement team of specialists and senior
negotiators , who will no longer be responsible for complex grants.
The grants team will be directed by Alex Galea who is promoted to
Assistant Director for Grants and Rosalind Palmer will join the team
as an additional Grants Associate. Tom Burns, Associate Director,
will be responsible for the specialists supporting contract negotiation.

2. NEW 3 (three) day due date:
Effective February 17th, these changes enable us to revise the
current grant application date due at ORA to 3 (three) days prior
to submission to the sponsor, instead of the current 5 days. Please
Note: Grant and Contract applications will need to be final when
submitted to ORA, as the new three day due date will not allow sufficient
time nor staff to process corrections after applications are submitted
to ORA.

3. More Timely Contract and Agreement Processing:
These changes should also provide for a more timely contract and agreement
review/negotiation, by not involving the contract and agreement staff
in complex grant applications. We will monitor the results of these
changes to determine whether additional resources are needed.

4. Research Administration Training:
Research application and agreement processing begins at the department
level. We are continuing to enhance research administration training
for departmental staff through:

Research Administration Training Program
for new and existing staff

Support for the SOM Research Administration
Professionals group

Monthly departmental staff training by ORA

Guidance for the new JHU Masters in Research
Administration degree program

We strongly believe that these changes will smooth the path for submitting
proposals, and enhance investigators' efficiency in this critical
area. We look forward to continuing to assist investigators to maximize
their effectiveness.

Dean's Research Integrity Lectures

The Office of Policy Coordination presents the following lectures
as part of the Dean's Research Integrity series. Each lecture has
been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credits.